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New Orleans schools need one application for all: Editorial

Recovery School District Superintendent Patrick Dobard talks to students at Andrew H. Wilson Charter School in New Orleans. Dobard kicked off the new school year by riding the bus with students and visiting schools on Aug. 6, 2012.
(Photo by Catherine Threlkeld, The Times-Picayune)

The educational revolution in New Orleans post-Katrina gave families an array of new schools, many of them charters, from which to choose. With those choices, though, came the headache of going from school to school and filling out mulitple applications.

Slowly, that process has become more streamlined. The state-run Recovery School District went to a system called OneApp this year that gave parents a single form to fill out for a spot in any of the district's 55 charter schools or 12 traditional schools. One of the city's four Type 2 charter schools, which are authorized by the state board of education and accept students from across Louisiana, also took part.

Although belated, that was a major improvement. Now, the Orleans Parish School Board is adding its six direct-run schools to the OneApp process, which will bring the city close to a universal application process for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

The School Board, however, will not require its 12 charter schools to use the application system because its contracts with the individual schools do not include a common enrollment process.

However, OPSB interim Superintendent Stan Smith and RSD Superintendent Patrick Dobard are working to persuade those charter schools to join in. They should. Having a single entry point for families to the city's decentralized system of schools is vital. Filing multiple applications and waiting to hear back from individual schools is cumbersome for families, and it is not an efficient way to enroll students. For instance, some schools end up with seats unfilled because they had no way to know a student chose another school.

And until all of the city's public schools, traditional and charter, are included, there will continue to be concerns about some schools wrongly refusing to take some students. Although RSD and OPSB officials say there's no solid evidence that is happening, there has been a consistent belief in the community that it does.

Over time, having all the city's public schools under one enrollment umbrella should erase those doubts.

The OneApp process allows families to rank which schools they would like for their children to attend. While everyone won't get what they want, RSD officials say they gave about 84 percent of applicants to kindergarten and ninth grade one of their top three picks this year.

Some charter operators are worried about a loss of freedom, which is understandable. But RSD officials say that an individual school's criteria can be factored into the process, including that of magnet schools like Ben Franklin or Lusher. Timelines for applications can be adjusted to accommodate schools that are in competition with private schools.

OneApp is not perfect, but it is a vast improvement for families. And that, after all, is what matters most.